Biography of James H Willcockson, Greene Co, AR

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Submitted by: Michael Brown
        Date: 5 Sep 1998
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
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Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas

page 184

James H. Willcockson, one of the wealthy residents of the county, is a
native of Middle Tennessee, where he was born in the year 1845. He was the third in a
family of nine children born to William and Mary (Rose) Willcockson, who were
Tennesseeans, the grandparents being wealthy farmers of Middle Tennessee. Grandfather
Rose went to Texas, where he bought a large tract of land on which he made his home
until his death. William Willcockson engaged in farming for himself after attaining
his majority, and resided in Tennessee (where he was married about 1841) until 1850,
then moving to Texas, where he bought a tract of 160 acres, which he opened for
cultivation, improved with good buildings, and on which he resided until 1853, then
coming to Greene County, Ark. After residing here for four years on two different
farms he returned to Texas, where he died in December, 1860, his wife also dying the
same month. James H. Willcockson returned to Arkansas after the death of his parents,
and for some time made his home with his grandmother. In 1865, at the age of twenty
years, he began farming for himself on rented land, and continued this for three
years, when he married Miss Adaline Bowling, a native of Greene County, and a
daughter of one of the early settlers. After his marriage he purchased a small farm
which he sold later [p.184] on, and then bought an excellent tract of land consisting
of eighty acres in the Cache bottom, which was then wild land but is now one of the
finest farms in the county. He has since purchased twenty-six additional acres, and
has now seventy acres under fence and cultivation, it being devoted to raising the
cereals and cotton. He is improving his grade of stock, and has crossed his cattle
with Durham, and has some fine Jersey red hogs. Mr. and Mrs. Willcockson are members
of the Baptist Church, and are the parents of the following children: William
Carroll, Robert Alexander, Lawrence Jefferson, and Anna Lee, who died at the age of
eighteen years.